An insightful analysis of the world's financial institutions and the regulatory challenges they face.

The continuing rapid evolution of financial systems challenges both management and regulators. While management strives to find cost-effective organizational structures that offer sufficient flexibility to respond quickly to environmental change, regulators strive to find effective responses to the competitive and prudential challenges presented by the rapidly changing dynamics of financial system operations. Current Directions in Financial Regulation addresses important aspects of both issues.

Topics include financial integration and its implications for regulators; cyclicality in operational and credit risk; convergence opportunities in the wholesale financial services market; the macroprudential framework for financial supervision and regulation; ways in which banks are learning how to better consolidate; regulatory evolution; and forthcoming regulatory challenges.

Contributors include Linda Allen (Baruch College, City University of New York), James Baillie (Torys), Claudio Borio (Bank for International Settlements), J. David Cummins (University of Pennsylvania), Gayle DeLong (Baruch College, City University of New York), Robert DeYoung (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), James V. Houpt (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), Nicholas Le Pan (Canada's Superintendent of Financial Institutions), Jean Roy (HEC, Montreal), and Ingo Walter (New York University).

Frank Milne is Bank of Montreal Professor of Economics and Finance, Department of Economics, Queen's University.Edwin H. Neave is emeritus professor of business and finance, School of Business, Queen's University.